This page is a compendium of items of interest - news stories, scurrilous rumors, links, academic papers, damnable prevarications, rants and amusing anecdotes - about LAUSD and/or public education that didn't - or haven't yet - made it into the "real" 4LAKids blog and weekly e-newsletter at http://www.4LAKids.blogspot.com . 4LAKidsNews will be updated at arbitrary random intervals.

Feb 9, 2016 :: Caprice Young thought the worst was behind
her, that her group's charter schools would be free to grow after
straightening out the poor financial record-keeping that prompted a
recent state audit.

She was wrong.

The school district still found fault with her organization's petitions to open new campuses. District officials told her to expect rejection.

Young's group, Magnolia Public Schools, eventually abandoned the effort.
Her
experience is becoming more common as the Los Angeles Unified School
District's administrators and board of education become increasingly
resistant to greenlighting new charter schools.

Charter supporters say the district is unfairly scrutinizing their independently run campuses because it sees them as a threat.

At
Tuesday's board meeting, members are poised to reject two new charters —
this in addition to the three charter petitions that Young withdrew
from consideration.

Since July 1, L.A. Unified has denied six
petitions and approved five others, according to figures from the
California Charter Schools Assn.

That's less than a 50% approval rate. Two years ago it was 89% and last year it was 77%, according to the association.

In
a letter emailed to the board Monday, leaders of charter groups accused
the district of obstructing their efforts to improve public education:

"We
are concerned that this district is looking for reasons to prevent new
charter schools from opening, even those proposed by the most respected,
successful charter operators. Issues that in the past were seen as
minor or correctable are now elevated to significant issues that somehow
warrant denial."
Twenty-one charter organizations, enrolling 56,000 students, signed the letter, which continued:
"Given
the measurable drop in approvals for new petitions, the inconsistent
and non-transparent review processes, and the backroom pressure to
abandon our efforts to grow, we all feel it is appropriate to bring
these concerns into the light of day."

The
school district has not analyzed its approval rate, said Jose
Cole-Gutierrez, head of the charter-school division, and he denied any
wrongdoing or change in policy.

"The process has remained the
same, and the findings are there for the board and the public to
review," he said. "Our office continues to be focused on quality for
students and putting students first."

Charters' rapid growth — to
about 101,000 students in L.A. — is responsible for about half of a
precipitous drop in district enrollment and the funding that comes with
it.

Charter operators said that families who want to take
advantage of charters should not be thwarted. The charter association
also points to regulations indicating that charters can't be blocked
because of harm to the district budget.

The issue with Magnolia
included problems with signatures on the petition and under-enrollment
at some of its 11 campuses, Cole-Gutierriez said.

It also may be
noteworthy that Magnolia is the subject of a long-running review by the
district's inspector general. No allegations of significant wrongdoing
have emerged.

For Young, the justifications sound more like excuses.

"Despite
bending over backward to answer all of their questions, they were going
to turn down our charters," said Young, who signed the letter.

Another
charter group facing a thumbs down for new petitions Tuesday is
Partnerships to Uplift Communities. It was co-founded by recently
elected school board member Ref Rodriguez, who is expected to recuse
himself from issues involving his former schools.

Partnerships to
Uplift Communities' petitions have sailed through in the past, but its
handling of food contracts has been under district investigation.

"It
appears that the emerging new policy may be that you get no new
charters if your existing charters have any problems," said one district
insider who was not authorized to speak on the record.

Another
charter group, Ingenium Schools, is being threatened with revocation of
its authority to operate three of its campuses, based on construction
work that allegedly posed a safety risk to students.

CAVEAT/ LA Times Editor's
note: Education Matters receives funding from a number of foundations,
including one mentioned in this article. The California Community
Foundation and United Way of Greater Los Angeles administer grants from
the Baxter Family Foundation, the Broad Foundation, the California
Endowment and the Wasserman Foundation. Under terms of the grants, The
Times retains complete control over editorial content.

Advocates say LAUSD unduly scrutinizing charter applications

February 09, 06:53 PM :: Tuesday’s Los Angeles Unified
school board meeting was like most others: a batch of charter school
applications were up for renewal and approval.

But on this day, charter school advocates said, L.A. Unified’s
administrators had shifted previous support for the independent campuses
and are now giving undue scrutiny to several petitions.

“We are seeing an unprecedented uptick in the recommendation of
denials of charter schools,” said Sarah Angel, the managing director of
advocacy for the California Charter Schools Association.

She said the school board approved 89 percent of the charter school
petitions it received in 2013, while this year, that rate has been cut
in half.

Angel argues that the shift came last year after a plan to double the number of charter schools in L.A. became public.

Tuesday’s school board agenda included seven charter school
petitions. Staff recommended three of them be denied. The denial
recommendations included concerns about academics and financial
resources.

Angel said the best example of a charter petition L.A. Unified got
wrong is the renewal of the 10-year-old Excel Charter Academy.

“We’re one of the best options around our community and we have a big
waiting list,” said Apolo Trujillo, whose two sons attended the school.
“We have built a reputation because students want to go to our school.
We have a very strong academic program.”

In documents submitted to the L.A. Unified school board staff
criticized Excel’s academic performance in recent years, citing large
decreases in academic performance among most students. API scores for
Latino students fell by 75 points in 2013.

Trujillo is also a math teacher at the school. Like many schools,
Trujillo said, the shift to more critical thinking learning standards
contributed to the drop. The school, he said, is trying to help students
overcome the challenges of home.

“We work in a community that’s one of the lowest income communities around,” Trujillo said.
Excel won renewal of its charter for five years after a 3-3 vote by
school board members. Denial of the charter renewal required four votes,
according to school board rules.

Alex Caputo-Pearl, the president of L.A. Unified’s teachers union,
says the charter school approval process has been too lax in recent
years. He urged the school board to be more selective.

“California has one of the most lax, generous structures of law for
charter schools so it’s hardly that there is a microscope on charter
schools," he said. "There hasn’t been enough regulation on charter
schools."